Campaign Updates

ACB Presenting Petition on 24D Resistant Crops to Portfolio Committee

Please attend to show your support. This coming Wednesday in Cape Town.

ACB received a late request last week from the Portfolio Committee on Agriculture to attend the meeting on Wednesday, 26 February. ACB will be presenting a petition on the 24D Resistant Crops and making a presentation at 9am so please attend to show your support. The Chair promised a total of three hearings and this is the second on GMOs.

If you would like to give support and hear what the industry has to say then please attend. Committee Room 1, Upper Ground Floor, 90 Plein Street. Make sure to take your id books along in order to gain entrance.

In May 2012 the South African GMO regulators (the Executive Council) approved Dow’s 2,4-D tolerant GM maize, dubbed ‘Agent Orange’ maize, for import into South Africa. In the ensuing public outcry, the ACB submitted a petition to Parliament, signed by over 7,000 individuals including many of you, and 18 health professionals, calling for a reversal of the decision, and a complete review of the GMO decision-making process in South Africa. Though the petition was submitted to the Parliament more than a year ago, we are still in the dark as to its status. Meanwhile, Dow continues to apply for import approval for its 2,4-D tolerant GM maize, most recently in July 2013, for a GM maize variety engineered to tolerate toxic combinations of 2,4-D, glufosinate and glyphosate.

The Indian Supreme Court has recommended an indefinite moratorium on field trials of GM crops until the Indian government fixes regulatory and safety measures. Italy is moving to ban Monsanto and all GM crops. Monsanto is losing its hold in Europe… And NOW it is our turn in South Africa to put an end to this.

So please, it is extremely important to sign the petition to support this intervention, and to please get at least 10 others to do the same. We need high numbers to strengthen our case that we are busy preparing.

Mariam and Zakiyya

The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moralinferiority to any creatures that cannot. ~Mark Twain, What Is Man, 1906

In 2013, Coca-Cola secretly funneled more than $1.5 million dollars through the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) in order to block an initiative that would have required the labeling of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

After the Washington State attorney general’s office threatened a lawsuit against GMA, the organization disclosed their financial backers, which included Coca-Cola.

Very few consumers know that pigs in South Africa are, for the most part, the worst treated of all commercially farmed animals.
The “Going Whole Hog” campaign seeks to accomplish the following :
1. Inform SA consumers about the plight of pigs in South Africa as well as health consequences of consuming “conventional” or factory-farmed animals. This will be achieved by first mobilising Activist supporters, then by engaging alternative or “Green Media” and finally, by addressing mainstream media.

A pregnant sow will be kept in a sow crate for the greater part of her gestation period – 107 days. A sow crate is a metal crate usually with a bare floor, which is so narrow that the sow cannot turn around and can only stand up and lie down with difficulty.

We know and accept that these animals are being raised for food. As an animal welfare organisation the National Council of SPCAs believes that animals should be treated humanely while they are on the farm, while they are transported and when they are slaughtered.

Compassionate choices are a critical step toward improving the welfare of pigs in South Africa.

You Can Make a Difference

Sign our pledge and make a personal commitment to fighting against cruelty to sows, click here …

Sign the petition and let the people who can influence change know that you want change, click here …

Petition requesting a ban on the import for food, feed and processing of Dow Chemical’s GM maize variety DAS-40278-9, and for a full enquiry into the decision-making process around GMO permits in South Africa.

African Centre of Biosafety presented petition to SA Parliament to:

Overturn the decision of the Executive Council: GMO Act to approve the importation for food, feed and processing, of Dow Chemical’s GM maize variety, DAS-40278-9;

To prohibit the importation of the GM maize variety, DAS-40278-9; and

Ensure that the provisions for public participation with regard to the GMO decision-making process in South Africa are transparent, just and fair.